Saturday, 11 June 2011

Untimely #23 - Left Field

The various parts of my head and face which contain hair, are currently at war with each other. The top section, which currently holds the most ground, has been lording it up over the rest for some time now, and it appears they have had enough. Now, they say, they are going to fight back. However, there is no camaraderie to be witnessed here; each faction is out for themselves, looking to stall, trim, or steal from their opponents at every turn. It has started to get ugly.

At three twenty-seven yesterday morning I was awoken by the tiny cries of battle. As I lifted my head, I saw by the light of my thankfully hairless alarm clock that my pillow was littered with the fur of the fallen. Putting my hand to my face, I was horrified to learn that the right side of my beard had been almost completely removed, brutally torn out in great hunks. I turned on the lamp and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I swear to god that the lashes beneath my left eye were smirking. How could this happen? Surely, I thought, it can’t get any worse. And yet it has.

When I awoke later that morning, I realised that the remains of my massacred beard were no longer on my pillow. I had been too drained, both emotionally and physically, to clear it up in the night, so where in the hell had it got to? I had my dreadful answer but a moment later when I looked in the mirror, only to discover that my vision had become murky and lopsided. Squinting with my one good eye, it became evident that the hair from my beard had somehow been grafted onto the lashes beneath my left eye, creating a rugged perm effect, covering the eye itself, and the best part of the face. This is the worst thing to have happened since the great chest hair riots of ’99.

I fear how this will end. The permed left eye has begun talking in street slang, changing the rules of engagement from a gentlemanly battle into those of a turf war. The top section still claims to be the king pin, but the sideburns have begun to whisper of a secret alliance with the mustache. The left side of my face looks like a nightclub carpet, the right resembles a dried up teabag.

I tried to comb some of the hair out of my eye but it kept moving out of the way. I don’t know that I’ll ever leave the house again.